About Us・(日本語の解説は写真の下をご覧ください)

Smile For Japan, a fundraising event for those affected by the 2011 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, was initially created in 2013 by Seattle-based Japanese artists Yuko Tanaka and Amy McCaleb. The organization’s initial goals were (1) to help children who lost families and homes to smile again, (2) to raise awareness of the ongoing radiation danger posed by the problems at the Fukushima nuclear plant, and (3) to keep the long-term effects of these disasters in public memory. The core group expanded to three when Yuko and Amy invited Seattle-based Japanese musician Miho Takekawa to bring live music to the 2013 event. And in 2014, a fourth member, Angelica Seregina, joined Smile for Japan. A certified lawyer from Moscow, Russia, working as a paralegal in Seattle, Angelica has experience providing legal and other assistance to those in need. She offers Smile for Japan not only her legal expertise, but a fresh perspective as well.

The mission of the annual Smile for Japan fundraiser is to use music and art to send heartfelt moral and financial support from Seattle to the Tohoku region. Funds raised from the 2013 event were sent to the Smile Ambassador, a Tokyo-based American actor who voluntarily visits Tohoku elementary schools to bring smiles to the region’s children. Money raised from the 2014 event was sent to Ohanashi Kiki-tai (“group who wants to listen”) of the NPO Watari Ichigokko, whose members visit elderly residents of Miyagi prefecture living alone in temporary government housing. Hanashi Tai volunteers are fully trained and massage the hands of these isolated elderly people as they talk with and comfort them. Proceeds from 2015 event were sent to Kamaishi Support Center NOZOMI, a small organization in Iwate Prefecture in Japan that works to help the elderly still forced to live in temporary housing after 4 years with no prospects for anywhere else to go. For Yuko and Miho, 3/11/2011 will always be that unforgettable day of panic when they suddenly found themselves completely unable to contact their families and friends in Japan. Only later did they discover that some of those friends had lost their lives, and that even entire hometowns had been destroyed. Amy was on a subway in Tokyo that day, and subsequently spent many hours in the dark with no idea of the magnitude of the quake elsewhere in the country, or what was to happen in the following days and weeks.

The members of Smile for Japan hope that their comparatively small but passionately felt gestures of music and art will help personal connections continue to blossom between the people of Seattle and Tohoku, promoting healing in a region that continues to suffer even while the media spotlight has moved elsewhere.(English Editor: Greg Campbell)